The War Against the Assholes Page 9

  Quinn fingered his weird teeth. He cleaned his glasses with his white shirt edge. “I left a thing on the whatever. On the outdoor table. Back there. Do you mind if I get it? I won’t like make any sudden moves,” he said. He was already walking. I didn’t like this. Alabama was getting set to fire. Feet planted and neck tense. “You worthless failure.” Not Quinn. It was Hob. “What did you just say,” said Quinn. Maybe he hadn’t actually understood him. In the end, if you’re a big enough asshole you can’t understand anything. “It’s mine,” said Hob. “Who are you to dictate terms,” said Quinn. He finger-combed his hair and made a yelping, rubbery noise. I have never understood why people love hallucinogens so much. Hob was holding up the thing he had snatched from the table, whatever Quinn had left there. A long black pencil. “You insect. I’ll kill you and your friends. I’ll kill your family,” Quinn said. Panted. “Oh Jesus,” said Alabama, “really?” “Give me what you stole,” said Hob, “you orphan.”

  “Hob,” said Alabama, “back away.” She’d lowered her gun and was tracking Quinn’s movements. I’d never seen anyone get shot before. I wasn’t looking forward to it. Quinn didn’t deserve it. Shooting’s too stiff a penalty for being an asshole. Or so maturity counsels me. I would have been philosophically gratified to see Alabama shoot. She didn’t. Quinn was on Hob, grappling with him, pummeling him. Hob pummeled back. Neither of them had the faintest idea how to throw a punch. They landed blows almost at random. I was rooting for Hob. He needed technical help. Alabama kept her gun up. I hoped she was planning on wounding Quinn. He annoyed me but I didn’t know him well enough to want him dead. “You insect,” Quinn shrilled over and over, “you insect.” He was practically weeping. I didn’t feel sorry for him. Whining over this pencil-like object. You know what it is: so said my conscience. I didn’t want to admit it, maybe. I was asking myself who stays alone outside in the cold at a party, in the half-dark, tripping their balls off. Then again, I had no right to judge. That’s what makes adolescence so difficult. You judge and thus you fear judgment.

  The long pencil they’d been fighting over: Hob hurled it out of Quinn’s reach and clinched with him. Quinn battered the back of Hob’s head. Alabama ran past them and grabbed the fallen object. “Don’t touch that, you stupid cunt,” whined Quinn. “Okay then,” said Alabama. She took a bead. She chewed her lip. Please aim for the leg, I thought, we can’t drag a corpse out of here. Hob punched Quinn in the throat. “Hob, you got this?” asked Alabama. Quinn yowled in rage. He didn’t crumple, as I’d thought he would. Instead he opened his mouth and sank his yellow, pointed teeth into Hob’s ear and tore a triangle of flesh out of it. Hob kept silent. He sucked in air and locked his hands around Quinn’s throat. Squeezed until Quinn let go of his ear. Blood striped the side of his face. Smeared his lips. His chin. “Do you even know who my family is,” Quinn said as he spat out the ear chunk. His voice wet and raucous. “Do you even know who they are? I hate them but do you even know who they are? They represent everything in the world!” Nerd brawls are entertaining. Nerd dialogue, too. Though what Hob did next surprised me. He slipped his hands down to Quinn’s white collar. Took a solid hold. Smashed Quinn’s face into the brick wall. Quinn gulped, gagged. Fell. He whined. He writhed. His nose spread out. He sprayed blood on the terrace bricks. “Nice work,” I said. Couldn’t help myself. Hob didn’t answer. He was drawing rapid, high breaths. “Well played,” said Alabama. Slipping her gun back into her waistband.

  All the crying and writhing: hard to watch. Our inner lives are all sordid. Or so I’ve come to believe. When I saw it happen it weirded me out. Hob was not finished, however. He kicked Quinn in the ribs and chest. “My uncle,” Quinn wailed, “my uncle.” He was making me curious. Family members have to be pretty stellar before you invoke them during moments of great personal crisis. “Who’s his uncle,” I said to Alabama. “I’m no genealogist,” said Alabama. Hob said, “You can scream all you like, you little bitch.” He kicked Quinn between each phrase. He kicked him over and over again. He grunted and gasped as he kicked. The kicks thudded. Quinn cried out wordlessly. His glasses shattered. He started to cough. More blood sprayed. “Hob,” I said. He didn’t listen. He kicked Quinn in the face. He kicked Quinn in the balls. Quinn stopped crying out. He just flopped around with every blow. “Hob,” I said. Hob didn’t listen. One hand clamping his handkerchief—drawn from nowhere—over his bleeding ear. “You little overachieving asshole, I hope you spend the rest of your life in a coma, you effete useless mediocre cunty thief,” he said. “Hob, maybe you should stop that now,” I said. Hob didn’t listen. He bent down. Got in close and started punching Quinn. In the face. Over and over. Blood dotted Hob’s chin. Looked black in the grim light. He grunted “where is it” between each blow. High and hard. Eventually Quinn stopped moving. Only his chest rose and fell. Hob said, “There you go, you scrotum,” and started frisking him. He stopped at the inside blazer pocket. “Bingo,” Hob said, straightening. He was covered with blood. His own and Quinn’s. He was holding a slim silver oblong. Also covered with blood. A black stone plaque on one face. “Real obsidian,” said Hob. Cool workmanship. I had to admit. “Oh, that definitely looks like it was worth it,” said Alabama.

  12

  It seemed, initially, like a brilliant plan. Then again, we were hammered. Quinn was lying at Hob’s feet. “We should go,” I said. “And leave him like this,” said Alabama. “We don’t have to leave him,” said Hob. “You make it sound like you have another totally brilliant solution,” said Alabama, “but maybe you should spare us.” Hob told us to lift Quinn up. “What is this shit,” said Alabama. “We don’t have a lot of time,” said Hob. “You little fuck,” she grunted as she heaved Quinn’s right arm up. I had his left.

  Quinn was not awake. He wasn’t out either. He moaned and bubbled blood. Hob was already holding the mirror. The nail against the brick wall a period. End of a sentence. Hob inverted the mirror. Stood behind Quinn. “For this next effect, I ask my brave assistants to release our volunteer at my command. Should they fail, the consequences will be severe.” “Just get it done already,” said Alabama, “okay.” Her voice strained. She wasn’t looking at Quinn. Or at Hob. Or at me. Hob raised the mirror as high as he could. The reflective side aimed toward the terrace floor. He held it above Quinn’s weakly tossing head. “This is going to be a tight fit,” said Alabama. Before my suspicion could take shape, Hob grunted, again, and brought the mirror downward. He said, “Release.” And I let go of Quinn’s left arm. Not because of the instruction. In terror. The mirror did not break when it hit Quinn’s scalp. He passed into it. As easily as a good diver passes through the surface of the water. Hob completed the action and flipped the mirror. “I had my doubts about that one,” he said. I saw Quinn. Lying on the floor of the reflected terrace. Trying to lift himself up on his elbows. I looked to the herringbone bricks on our side. Nothing. I looked to the herringbone bricks on the other side. Quinn. New bloodstains. “And what if it hadn’t worked,” said Alabama. “Broken glass and what have you,” said Hob, “not as bad as the original sin, here.” He caught me gaping. “That, Michael,” he said, “is how you do it with mirrors.”

  The elongated girl was waiting for us. Started giving us shit as soon as we walked back into the living room. “Excuse me, but you need to leave,” she said. “We just got here, Eleanor,” said Hob. He had his handkerchief tied around his head, and his hat on above that. It hid the wound. Sort of. I was glad the cloth was red. We’d used the last of the whiskey to clean him off, and to sterilize—Alabama’s idea—the tear in his ear. It didn’t faze him. He just asked if he was clean enough to pass inspection. He was. I thought. I was holding his bag. It shook. “Excuse me, but if you think you can just come in here and,” she said. Stopped. “And what,” said Alabama. “We’ll call the police,” said Eleanor the Elongated. “I doubt that,” said Alabama. The way Eleanor’s curd-white, set face softened announced that Alabama was, in fact, correct. “Just get out,
” said the floppy-haired kid who’d tried to hit on Alabama. “Fucking ow,” said Hob. The music still terrible. Now it was the Dead, I was pretty sure. No band I hated as much as a kid. No band I hated as much later on. Or it might have been a version of the Dead. An iteration. Not even the real thing. The kids still standing, with the stunned look of people who don’t know what to do with their hands. I was holding Hob’s bag. The mirror quivering at unpredictable intervals. Even through the scarf we had wrapped it in. Even through the green canvas. You could mistake it for a phone set to vibrate. For that I was glad. None of the Mountjoy kids seemed to notice. “Just get out, you insects,” said the floppy-haired kid. Insects: a standard term of opprobrium with them. Not hard to see that. A failure of imagination when you have a communal term to abuse people. Your imagined inferiors. “Keep talking shit,” said Alabama. The floppy-haired kid, again, went silent. And we were on our way.

  “It’s shaking,” I said as I handed the bag over. “Yeah, well,” said Hob, “nobody’s perfect.” The crows on the stone sill were eyeing us. “Are they going to attack us,” I said. “No sweat if they do,” said Alabama, “there’s like only three.” “That’s one for each of us,” I said, “by my count.” She snorted. “Don’t worry so much, Michael,” said Hob. “Now, it’s precisely that kind of attitude,” said Alabama, “that gets us into trouble like this in the first place.” The crows dispersed when we reached the end of the block. Winged off into the dark. Their periodic calls went on and on. We walked. We couldn’t think of what else to do. I can easily say that this was the worst event I had ever participated in. Up to that point. We flanked Hob. Like his bodyguards. He kept one hand on the bag, until Alabama said, “If you keep doing that a cop is going to notice. And then we’ll all be screwed.” Alabama took a flask out of her jacket. “You been holding out on us,” I said. Trying to raise a laugh. Dead silence. She handed it to Hob, who drank and handed it back to her. She handed it to me. I recognized the taste. The liquid in the carboys. The neck of the flask still warm from Alabama’s lips. We were walking vaguely. Alabama took the lead. I asked if she lived around here. “Why do you give a shit,” she said. “Just making conver­sation,” I said. “You’re really skilled at it, anyone ever tell you that,” she said. I drank. “Don’t bogart that joint, my friend,” said Hob. And I saw it again, without warning: the smooth, inevitable, swift swallowing of Quinn Klayman.

  I expected to feel more guilt. I won’t lie. I was faintly uncomfortable. That was because of the vibrations from the bag. Not for moral reasons. Also, it was unclear what we were guilty of, so far. Assault: absolutely, for Hob. Aiding and abetting: maybe, for me and Alabama. Beyond that: kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment. I didn’t know what the law said about mirror confinement. I wasn’t that worried about Klayman. Physically, I mean. He had taken a beating. Not the kind that will kill you. Hob, I was confident, could release him. What bothered me was: where. Yes, we could in theory have avoided this question. We failed to. A pure example of human psychology. And now we were fucked for options. We couldn’t leave the mirror on the street. We couldn’t let him out in my house. Not in Hob’s. Not in Alabama’s. Not in the basement. I thought: the park. The vibrating mirror suggested Quinn was up and about. Staggering and bloody, as I saw it. If he started yowling there it would draw cops. I thought: The subway. In the subway, they had cameras and even more cop access. “And seriously, what was he talking about, a map,” said Alabama. “I do not know,” said Hob, “but people like to expound on their personal theories when they take acid. That I do know.”

  I stayed with Hob, smoking in a doorway, while Alabama ran into a drugstore. She came out with a loud, white plastic bag. Bandages, peroxide. She seemed to know what was necessary. She led us to a diner, called the Gravesend. I don’t know why: nowhere near Gravesend. Maybe the owners came from there. Maybe they were immigrants and thought it sounded cool. The fake wood inside was dark and warm looking. The air smelled like frying fat. A guy with a shoe-black toupee was sitting in the booth next to us. Staring into a plate with six slices of wheat toast. Nothing else. We ordered Cokes, to earn bathroom access. I was hungry. But ordering food seemed against the tone of the evening so far. “You need help, you have to get it from Wood,” Alabama said when Hob rose. “I have this under control,” he said. “Sure you do,” said Alabama. The waitress came. “I am going to check in there when he gets done,” she said, “and if I find what I expect to find, I am going to call the cops. You kids think we’re so out of it.” I didn’t know if she meant, by “we,” waitresses or adults in general. Alabama gave her the finger when her back was turned. The bag sat between us on the red banquette. Jumping whenever the mirror vibrated. “Do you think he’s pounding on the mirror,” I said. “I can’t believe you can’t smoke in here anymore,” said Alabama. I did the math. She would have been at most seven when the ban passed. Nostalgia’s powerful. Even if appropriated. When Hob came out of the bathroom, the waitress ran in. “I hope you were thorough,” said Alabama, “the waitress is going in for a search.” “I had another really good idea while I was in there,” said Hob, “but I feel like my credibility with you two is strained.” “I’m listening,” said Alabama. The waitress trudged back out of the bathroom. Her face slack in disappointment. You’d be surprised what a loss it can be when you miss out on a chance to call the police.

  Alabama thought Hob’s idea was stupid. She wasn’t wrong. Even I saw that. But an idea’s being stupid isn’t a real argument against it. We’d be nowhere without stupidity. It also, like all stupid ideas, contained a powerful logical argument. We couldn’t keep the mirror. We couldn’t abandon it. We couldn’t destroy it. We couldn’t return it to its owners. So we had to leave it in the custody, Hob said, of a certain type of organization. An organization with the requisite knowledge and skills to release the prisoner within it. One with the savvy to understand, he said, that just by leaving it there we had made an act of contrition. “No, no, no. No, no, no. And no. No way,” said Alabama, “no fucking way.” “Do you have anything else,” Hob said. She kept arguing until we got off the bus. The 15. Her argument was basic. Just the word no, in various forms. I could see she was hoping to win through attrition. Because, as noted, Hob had a point. To which she had no real refutation. We were fucked for other options. And if the last option you have is also the stupidest, you need to make your peace with it.

  Mountjoy looked like a school for the failed. “Jesus H. Particular Christ,” said Alabama, “the roofline.” Against the yellow-brown-blue of the moonlit sky, three or four dozen crows. Two hopped into the air and breezed down toward the shuttered and garbage-green news kiosk we were crouching behind. “Well,” said Hob, “they are one hundred percent looking at us.” They were. He was not projecting. They weren’t freaking out. Maybe they had higher objectives, I thought. The place needed surveillance. No guard. No slumbering rent-a-cop. I’d imagined a knight. A polished suit of armor. Nothing. Not even a doorman, that I could see. Just a narrow, rain-grayed town house sandwiched between two much newer buildings, one red brick and one faced in glass. The brick one alight and the glass one dark. “I used to go to the dentist in the one on the corner,” said Hob, “I think.” On the bowed gutter of the shingled roof, shining in the moonlight, the rank of crows. On the eaves. On the windowsills. The door heavy looking. Made of normal brown door wood. A brass knob. A brass mail slot. Lamp glow within. “Are they on vacation,” said Hob. This hadn’t occurred to me. “Makes this easier, if true,” said Alabama. Light leaked from the brick building next to the gray house. Light leaked from the streetlamps. City streets look like set stages at certain hours. Ten feet of iron fence fronted the gray house: black palings, ending in the usual spikes that guard town homes. Crows perched on those too, one per spike. A curlicued handle on the gate. Two patches of lawn and two large maple trees. Both red and full leaved. “That’s weird,” said Hob. “Must be how they know it’s there,” I said, “I bet not everyone can see them.” “You�
��re more astute than you look, Wood,” said Alabama, “but that doesn’t do anything about the crows.”

  I admit: the view of Mountjoy House from the south was much more impressive. In that it was identical to the view from the north. Same fence. Same fancy handle. Same lawn patches, steps, door with its gleaming brass knob. Same maples and same crows. The best place to hide the strange and inexplicable is in plain sight. The glamour—that was another term Mr. Stone used, he told me it meant a kind of standing spell—we were seeing probably kept most people away. Welcomed the right ones in. And taunted the aware but excluded. “I could kill a few crows,” said Alabama, “this thing has better accuracy than you’d think at a distance. It’s why I use this model.” “I’m all in favor of that,” said Hob, “but it wouldn’t really get us anywhere.” The weather was winter-perfect. Cold but not too cold, and the air still. Moon enormous. I didn’t mind just standing and looking at that doorknob. “We can go in from next door, I bet,” I said. “Now, that’s what I’m talking about,” said Hob, “that’s real innovation.” “Look at you, Mr. Logistics,” said Alabama. She had begun to believe in the plan. I could tell. Her tone had thawed. I already believed in it more. And besides, I wanted to see how the assholes lived. You want to understand your enemy, you have to know his habits.

  The crow guards didn’t seem interested in the fact that we were within the property line of the building next to Mountjoy. They didn’t have a lot of attention to spread around. Their brains being the size of a chickpea. No guard at a desk. No lights on. “Observe, ladies and gentle­men,” Hob said, “I will now consume this key and suffer no bodily harm.” He took a yellow-brass key from his key ring and placed it in his mouth. Made a theatrical gulp. Showed us his tongue. Nothing there. He knelt and placed his lips against the street door’s keyhole. Blew through it. Pushed. The door swung inward. Runoff light from the street filled the bland room. Lit up an ocean-vista painting. Seaweed and sails. Lit up the beige chairs. The rattling of a motor. Distant or well hidden. “I bet there’s an access tunnel in the basement,” I said. “Please,” said Hob. He was pacing back and forth, eyeing the wall. His ear bandage catching the light. “Consider this ordinary painting, ladies and gentlemen,” said Hob. Alabama drew her gun.